As best I recall, Dr. Frankenstein of movie fame pieced together his infamous monster merely for the love of science. His intellectual curiosity would not be satisfied until he discovered whether it was possible to overdraw his account at the organ bank and jolt it back to life with a giant electrical charge.

Over the past few decades, we’ve played Dr. Frankenstein with the People’s Republic of China. From here on out, I’ll refer to it by the politically incorrect name of Red China because I am politically incorrect.

However, unlike Dr. Frankenstein, we’ve created our monster for a price.

Richard Nixon opened the door to the "sleeping giant" through his use of ping-pong diplomacy. Then, he sent Henry Kissinger knocking on China’s door like the Avon lady in drag until he finally made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

We would turn our backs on our loyal Nationalist Chinese allies and break off diplomatic relations. We would allow our multi-national corporations to pour billions of dollars into the cash-starved economy of Red China. We would rebuild their out-of-date military-industrial complex. And we would explain to the folks back home, gullible US working folks, how much we could benefit from the deal.

Right.

Well, here it is, some 30 years later, and we need to ask ourselves some serious questions. Has inclusion within the international community made Red China more or less of a potential threat? Has Red China significantly improved its treatment of dissidents and even its own loyal citizens? Do the availability of a few cheap plastic imported toys or electronics pieces outweigh the loss of US jobs during the factory flight of the ‘80s? Has Red China bought political influence and secret military plans with the dollars we provided?

Have we literally given Red China the rope to hang ourselves with?

If so, it would not be the first time we’ve made such a mistake. It’s true, we sold Japan the scrap metal it needed to bomb our fleet at Pearl Harbor. And there are reports one major American oil company was dealing with the enemy throughout World War II.

But it increasingly appears our relationship with the Chinese is a geo-political rehash of the Frankenstein’s movie plot.

This monster of our creation is dictating our foreign policy. Over the weekend, the Chinese leadership warned us not to entertain any visit by the former president of Taiwan, Lee Teng-Hui. CIA Director George Tenet went on record, last week, warning the Senate that Red China is beefing up its military with Russian arms to confront the Taiwanese and perhaps the U.S. with its nuclear weapons if we become involved in Taipei’s defense.

So, now the CIA is saying the problem with China is its purchase of Russian arms. And what is the US prepared to do to prevent that? We’re ready to sell the People’s Liberation Army all the laptop computers it needs for its forthcoming Taiwan invasion.

The ultimate irony is that the laptop computers, which would send battlefield data back to generals in Beijing, are being built in Taiwan. It appears greed knows no national boundaries.

Omigosh…Dr. Frankenstein…it’s…alive!

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